Poem in Your Pocket Day

Poem in your Pocket Day is an annual international event to encourage people to center poetry in their daily interactions and involves sharing pocket-sized poems in the community. Celebrated on April 29th, 2022, Poem in your Pocket Day is virtually hosted in Canada by the League of Canadian Poets. The Rare Dementia Support (RDS) Canada team and members of our Advisory Circle will be out in the community in North Bay, Thunder Bay and Gananoque distributing poems, sharing, and learning from the lived experiences of people affected by rare or young onset dementia.

Poetry is a medium poised to evoke feeling and connection, and put voice to lesser-known experiences. These #pocketpoems from the Rare Dementia Support Impact Study have been previously published in “There Is So Much I Could Say” edited by Martha Gould and Lawrence Wilson, 2022. In the words of poet facilitator, Marth Gould: “Misdiagnosed and misunderstood, we share these poems describing the varied dimensions of living with rare and young onset dementia. The poems will speak to you.”

RDS Canada sincerely thanks all those involved in the co-creation of this project: participants with lived experience, poet facilitators Martha Gould and Lawrence Wilson, RDS Impact Study team, RDS UK and The National Brain Appeal, The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation, and the Economic and Social Research Council/ National Institute for Health Research (UK).

Poems will be distributed on campus and images shared on social media. @RDSCanada